{"id":197727,"date":"2026-09-05T23:53:10","date_gmt":"2026-09-05T23:53:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/197727\/"},"modified":"2026-09-05T23:53:10","modified_gmt":"2026-09-05T23:53:10","slug":"winnipeg-police-investigating-report-of-hateful-threatening-graffiti-targeting-nagar-kirtan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/197727\/","title":{"rendered":"Winnipeg police investigating report of hateful, threatening graffiti targeting Nagar Kirtan"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Estimated 3 minutes<\/p>\n

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The Winnipeg Police Hate Crimes Unit is investigating a report of several threatening messages and hateful symbols throughout the city targeting the upcoming Nagar Kirtan event on Sunday.<\/p>\n

A photo circulating online shows a Winnipeg transit sign defaced with a swastika, and a racist threat. <\/p>\n

CBC News has not been able to independently verify the photo, nor locate the sign. <\/p>\n

Some members of the Sikh community, however, have noticed the image circulating online. <\/p>\n

One of whom is Aman Mand, who was helping setup tents on Saturday afternoon at Memorial Park ahead of the event.<\/p>\n

“Little angry \u2014 just for a few seconds, but then it’s not what I think Winnipeg represents, that was my second reaction,” Mand said. <\/p>\n

“Certainly most people I’ve met in Winnipeg since the day one, they’ve been so nice, so warming, so welcoming to me.”<\/p>\n

\"TwoAman Mand (right) stands next to his cousin Gurpreet Sandhu at Memorial Park on Saturday afternoon, as they assemble the tents ahead of Sunday’s Nagar Kirtan celebrations in downtown Winnipeg. (Justin Fiacconi\/CBC)<\/p>\n

Nagar Kirtan is an annual celebration of the Sikh religion’s holy scripture, and will feature a procession parading the Guru Granth Sahib, the religion’s holy book, throughout downtown Winnipeg on Sunday. <\/p>\n

The event typically draws thousands each year. <\/p>\n

Jasdeep Devgan, MLA for McPhillips, says excitement amongst the Sikh community for the event is building, and despite the hateful image circulating online, the community will show up to celebrate like in past years. <\/p>\n

“I’ve seen the images online too, like everyone else. And so I think that, you know, it was designed to de-motivate the Sikh community related to the Nagar Kirtan, it’s pretty violent rhetoric,” Devgan said.<\/p>\n

“But you know, this is an event that’s been running for almost 3 decades now. The community has been showing up for the Nagar Kirtan \u2014 and just as they have in the past, they’re going to continue to do so this year.”<\/p>\n

Diljeet Brar, MLA for Burrows, took to social media to address the image online.<\/p>\n

“Hatred and racism expressed in this comment is against Canadian values so the one writing the comment should be the one going back to where they belong,” he wrote on social media in reference to the image.<\/p>\n

Mand says he’s not intimidated by the photo, but admitted it did scare his family a little bit. He’s still planning on showing up to the celebration with his wife and kids, to spread love and be amongst the community, he said. <\/p>\n

In a statement to CBC News, Winnipeg police say there will be an increased police presence and patrols in and around the event on Sunday “to help ensure the safety and security of all participants.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Listen to this article Estimated 3 minutes The audio version of this article is generated by AI-based technology.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":197728,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[84],"class_list":["post-197727","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-winnipeg","tag-winnipeg"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197727","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=197727"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197727\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/197728"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=197727"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=197727"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=197727"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}